The present invention relates to computer interfaces. In particular, the present invention relates to three-dimensional computer interfaces.
Many computer systems display images produced by different applications within different windows on a computer monitor. Examples of operating systems that generate such windows include Windows 95®, Windows 98®, Windows NT®, and Windows® 2000 from Microsoft Corporation. In such systems, users are able to interact with multiple applications. For example, a user may have one window open for Word 97 from Microsoft Corporation and a second window open for Excel from Microsoft Corporation.
It has been observed that computer users open different windows for different tasks and organize the display of their windows differently for different tasks. For example, when a user performs the task of writing a computer program, they may have two windows open in a split screen format, with one window containing a program editor and the other window containing the interface generated by the program. However, when the user is performing a task such as sending e-mails, the user may have the mail window open so that it takes up most of the screen and a scheduling application open in a small part of the screen.
Since each task may be associated with different windows in different layouts, one system of the prior art has allowed the user to associate the layout of particular windows with particular tasks. In this prior art system, such layouts were referred to as rooms, even though the layout provided a two-dimensional view of the windows as seen on most current two-dimensional displays. The user could select one of the rooms to work with by picking the room from a grid of icons representing each of the available rooms. In this prior art system, the rooms are placed in the grid by the system. This forces the user to scan the grid in order to find the room that they wish to work with. Such a layout makes the use of the room system difficult for most users.